Resident Evil Outbreak File #2
- March 15, 2005 00:00 AM PST
for help fall on deaf ears in Resident Evil's follow-up online outing.
A plumber, a waitress, and a policeman walk into a bar. None of 'em says a word in this sealed-lipped online sequel even if they're supposed to prove that, together, ordinary people can cope with extraordinary circumstances (in this case, an outbreak of bogeyman-making bacteria).Resident Unpleasant
Online or off, you pick a working class hero from one line of employment or the other, along with a pair of fellow wage slaves who will follow you around one of four freak-infested locales. Take for instance subway staffer Jim Chapman, who carries a lucky coin and plays dead; aforementioned plumber David King, who can duct tape trash together to forge new weapons; and waitress Cindy Lennox, who, according to the manual, is "accustomed to the harsh realities of society and never loses her cool even in extreme situations." (Grabass Raccoon City customers, it seems, conditioned her for hoards of flesh-hungry zombies.) So much for cool characters.
Speech Impediment
Not that a pepperoni-tossing pizza maker would've made a difference: This game is plebian top to bottom (all the more so after Resident Evil 4's jolting duel with the undead). Labyrinths of locked doors (with long, black loading screens behind them unless you have the HDD hard drive) and love-it-or-hate-it knickknack hunting are series staples, while creepy-cool environments and a mash of the saga's most-feared monsters (tyrants, lickers, and the like) are what you'd expect.
It's having to help brain-eatingly bad A.I. (alone) or trying to cooperate when you can't communicate (online) that makes survival horrible. Computer-controlled nitwits wander off for 20 minutes at a time, stuff their pockets with gewgaws rather than pick up useful gear, and hold their tongues when they get their hands on the something-or-other you've looked high and low for. Of course, you won't have to explain to your buddy in Wichita that he's being eaten alive, but without voice chat, you couldn't even if you wanted to. Try splitting up and searching for separate halves of the same key with 10 or so prefab, controller-issued chat commands ("Help!" "Come here!" "Wanna play SOCOM instead?").
